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ADIGRAT UNIVERSITY
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND
TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL AND
COMPUITER ENGINEERING
CHAPTER-03
EFFECTIVE SCIENTIFIC PRESENTATION
SKILLS
Associated Lesson Concept
Engineers spend a great deal of time writing technical reports to
explain project information to various audiences.
The Importance of Writing
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The Importance of Writing
Many engineers spend between 1/3 and 1/2 of their work time engaged
in technical writing.
Examples include:
proposals
regulations
manuals
procedures
requests
technical reports
progress reports
emails
memos
Technical Writing
Technical writing is a type of expository writing this is used to convey
information for technical or business purposes.
Technical writing is NOT used to:
entertain
create suspense
invite differing interpretations
Technical Reports
Engineers write technical reports (also called engineering reports) to
communicate technical information and conclusions about projects to
customers, managers, legal authority figures, and other engineers.
A technical report follows a specific layout and format as specified
by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
Back Matter
Appendixes
Bibliography
List of Symbols, Abbreviations, and Acronyms
Appendixes:
Anything that cannot be left out of a report, but is too large for the
main part of the report and would serve to distract or interrupt the
flow belongs in the appendixes
Examples include:
Large tables of data
Flowcharts
Mathematical analysis
Large illustrations
 Cont..
Detailed explanations and descriptions of test techniques and
apparatus
Technical drawings
List of Symbols, Abbreviations, and Acronyms
 Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be:
1. Unauthorized use of the language and thoughts of another author
and the representation of them as one's own
2. Submitting someone else’s text as one’s own or attempting to blur
the line between one’s own ideas or words an those borrowed from
another source.
3. Carelessly or inadequately citing ideas or words borrowed from
another source.
Intellectual Challenges
To avoid plagiarism, we can have outline as follows:
HOW TOGIVE A GOOD PRESENTATION
 WHYBOTHERGIVING AGOODTALK?
 First impressions matter!
 There’s no point doing good work if others don’t know about it or
can’t understand what you did.
 Good practice for a teaching career! Good practice for any career!
 Helps you sort out what you’ve done, and understand it better
yourself.
TYPES OFPRESENTATIONS
Quick 1-minute “what I do” talk
25 minute conference paper presentation
Project presentation
Thesis defense
Job talk
 What they have in common:
Never enough time to talk about everything
All of them reflect on you & need practice/polish
Focus on a clear goal and message.
TOP10 POINTERS FOR AGOODTALK
1. Be neat
2. Avoid trying to cram too much into one slide
 Don’t be a slave to your slides.
3. Be brief
use keywords rather than long sentences
4. Avoid covering up slides
5. Use a large font
Cont..
6. Use color to emphasize
7. Use illustrations to get across key concepts
May include limited animation

8. Make eye contact

9. Be ready to skip slides if time is short

10. Practice !!
A “TYPICAL” PROJECTTALKOUTLINE
 Title/author/affiliation(1 slide)
 Forecast(1 slide) Give gist of problem attacked and insight found

 Outline(1slide)
 Background
 Motivation and Problem Statement(1-2 slides)

 Related Work(0-1 slides)

 Methods(1-3 slides) Explain your approach; illustrate algorithm

Cont..
 Results(2-6 slides) Present key results and key insights. This is
main body of the talk, but don’t try to show ALL results.
 Summary(1 slide)

 Future Work(0-1 slides)

Backup Slides(0-3 slides)
Optionally have a few slides ready to answer expected questions.
OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER
 Oral communication is different from written communication
Keep it simple and focus on a few key points
Repeat key insights
 Be sensitive to your audience
The same talk may need to be adjusted for a different
audience
 Make the audience want to learn more
 Handling Q&A is as important as the formal talk itself
 HOW TO IMPROVE?
 Practice by yourself
 Practice in front of friends
 Practice in front of a webcam
Watch footage later… alone… as painful as that may
be!
 Take note of effective speakers and adopt their successful habits
THE BIGGER PICTURE:
 COMMUNICATION ANDYOURCAREER
 Expressing yourself technically
helps you make and use
professional connections wisely
 You are joining a long-term
community…
 Communicate your ideas to forge
mentoring and technical
relationships in the service of
professional goals
Structure of a presentation
Oral presentation
Importance of presentation
 Presentation is a part of research by definition
 The higher your position is, the more presentations you have to
make
 Presentation is also an important part of professional practice or
life
 Good presentation skill contributes to professional success
 Nature of presentation
Speaker Vs. audience
Speaker:
wants to convey something
One person
Familiar with the topic
Audience:
May want to listen and benefit
Many persons
May not be familiar with topic
 Plan your presentation
Presenting a research finding:
1. Why was the work done?
(State problem and goal)
2. What are possible solutions?
(State solutions)
3. What findings resulted from the work?
(Present the results of your work)
4. What do the results imply?
(State consequences of your work)
Plan your presentation - Structure
1. Tell them what you are going to present
Overview, introduction, motivation 20%
2. Your main presentation
Main body of your talk 70%
3. Tell what you told them again
Summary 10%
Don’t forget:
Few main points
Design your presentation around time
Don’t collect facts – tell a story
Presentation Delivery
 Plan ahead
(know the room; technical equipment; ...)
 Know the introduction by heart
 Concentrate before your talk
(Recall your main points)
 Speak freely (don’t read and don’t recite)
 Don’t use formal notes (the most cheat cards)
 Use humor (but needs to be clean, appropriate and should make a
point)
 Dress right
Cont..
Attitude/Style:
Keep good time
Be enthusiastic
Be dramatic
Voice:
Speak loudly and clearly
Avoid monotony
(change volume, speed, rhythm; make pauses)
Mannerism:
Look at your audience
Keep eye contact
Move, but don’t pace
Use gesture and body language
Cont..
Interact with audience
Questions to audience (not frequently)
Be open to questions
Ending a point and beginning a new point
Slow down and higher volume
Short pauses
Appropriate expressions
Dealing with nervousness
deep breathe, slow down, and confess it
Language (English)
Keep it simple
Emphasize the key points
Check the difficult pronunciations
 Key tips for slides
1. Carefully Compose Your Slides
 Don’t copy & paste slides from different sources. You don’t want
your presentation to look like a rag rug. What you’re aiming for is
a consistent look. This will help your audience focus on the
essential; your speech and the key facts you’re highlighting on
your slides.
 Pick an easy to read font face. It’s hard to get this right. Unless
you’re a designer, stick to a single font face and limit yourself to
playing with safe colors and font sizes.
 Carefully select font sizes for headers and text.
 Leave room for highlights, such as images or take home messages.
 Decorate scarcely but well. If you have good content, you won’t
need decoration. Your template will be decoratively enough.
Cont..
2. Use Consistency
 Consistently use font face and sizes on all slides. This one goes
back to using a template.
 Match colors. This is where so many presentations fail. You might
have chosen a funky template and stuck to the designer’s color
profile
3. Use Contrast
 Black text on a white background will always be the best, but also
the most boring choice. You’re allowed to use colors! But use
them responsibly.
 Keep it easy on the eyes and always keep good contrast in mind.
Cont..
4. Apply Brilliance
 Carefully use color to highlight your message! Colors are your
friends.
 Don’t weaken the color effect by using too many colors in too
many instances.
 Make a brilliant choice: match colors for design and good contrast
to highlight your message.
5. KISS
Keep It Straight and Simple. That means…
Keywords only on your slides.
Absolutely no full sentences!
And never read your slides, talk freely.
Cont..
6. Take Home Message
 Always summarize your key point in a Take Home Message. Ask
yourself, if your audience should learn or remember one single
thing from your presentation
 The Take Home Message is your key message, a summary of your
data or story. If you’re giving an hour long presentation, you
might actually have several Take Home Messages.
 Make your Take Home Message memorable. It’s your
responsibility that your audience takes home something valuable.
 Image:-Images are key elements of every presentation.
Cont..
7. Add Images
 Have more images in your slides than text. Visuals are your
friends.
 But do not use images to decorate! That’s a poor use of visuals
because it’s just a distraction.
 Images can reinforce or complement your message.
8. Don’t Be Silly
 Sparingly use animations and media. You should really only use
them in one of two cases:
To draw attention, for example to your Take Home Message.
Or to clarify a model or emphasize and effect.
Cont..
9. Keep Your Audience In Mind
 When you compile your presentation, ask yourself these
questions:
What does my audience know?
What do I need to tell them?
What do they expect?
What will be interesting to them?
What can I teach them?
What will keep them focused?
Cont..
10. Practice
 A well practiced and enthusiastic talk will help you convince your
audience and keep their attention. Here are some key points that
define a good talk:
Know your slides inside out.
Speak freely.
Speak with confidence – loud and clear.
Don’t speak too fast.
Keep eye contact with your audience.
.

An Overview of Ethical Issues In Research and

Professional Practice
Introduction: Key Issues
 Objective: Not to present all about engineering ethics (topic could
take one whole semester) but highlight some engineering ethics
issues
 Ethical issues are functions or reflections of societal norms and
goals. Example: production of Freon 112 gas
 Key Issues: Public good, objectivity and truthfulness, faithfulness
and trust, responsible and lawful conduct etc.
 Ethical behavior and performance requires judgment to balance
competing interests
Consequences of wrong decision can be severe
Imprisonment
Loss of professional status
Codes of Ethics
 Codes of Ethics: By law, by professional societies…
 All provide standards of professional conduct
 A comprehensive set of professional standards is provided by the
National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE,USA)
 National and local governments also legislate codes of
professional practice that suits their individual circumstances
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END OF THE COURSE